Sunday, July 29, 2012

A few weeks ago, my friend and I went to one of the Talking Taste presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. It's an annual series where local chefs do a talk and cooking demonstration at the museum. You can get an adult beverage from the bar, and have a local chef make you snacky bits while you sip sangria and watch, overlooking Boston Harbor. It is the height of "adult fun".

The presentation by Tse Wei Lim and Diana Kudajarova from Journeyman restaurant focused on ice cream. They talked a lot about the different ratio's for making ice cream, sherbet, sorbet, and gelato. They served an arrugula ice cream (and you thought beet was odd), peach ice cream, and blueberry sorbet.

In a custard based ice cream, you should have 2-11% fat, 15-30% non-fat solids, 15-23% sugar, with egg yolks comprising 7-9% of the base and the rest being liquid.

In a Philadelphia style ice cream base, there should be 7-11% fat, 24-30% non-fat solids, 16-23% sugar, the rest being liquid.

sorbet is 20-60% fruit juice or puree, 25-32% sugar, and the rest should be liquid.

Ingredients1 8oz pkg cream cheese or neufchatel cheese1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk1/3 cup whipping cream (I didn't have any on hand so I used half plain yogurt and half milk and it turned out fine)2 tsp lemon zest (I just zested a whole lemon)1 1/2 cups fruit cut up bite sized (the ad used strawberries, I used cherries)

InstructionsCombine the cheese, condensed milk, whipping cream/yogurt, and lemon zest in a mixer until smooth. Then add fruit and put in the fridge to cool (the colder your mix is before you put it in the ice cream maker, the better)Churn in your ice cream maker according to directions.NOM

The add also included chopped graham crackers, but I chose to omit them

(I added a half cup of chopped pecans and a half cup chopped dates, tossed with a quarter cup flour)

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a standard 12-well muffin pan. Or line the pan with paper muffin cups, and grease the cups.

2) To make the filling: Place the cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat on low power for 40 seconds. Stir in the sugar and flavor. Set aside.

3) To make the muffin batter: In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

4) In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, water, and oil.

5) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

6) Fold in the grated carrots, stirring to combine.

7) Drop about 2 tablespoons of the batter (a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here) into each muffin cup, spreading it to cover the bottom.

8) Dollop on a heaping tablespoon of filling; a level tablespoon cookie scoop works well here.

9) Cover with enough batter to fill the muffin cups quite full. The batter will come to within about 1/4" to 3/8" of the top of each muffin cup. But don't try to use all the batter; unless you have particularly deep cups, you'll have abut 1/3 cup batter left over. Bake it in a separate custard cup, if desired.

10) Bake the muffins until a toothpick inserted into the cake part of one (not into the cream cheese filling) comes out clean, about 20 minutes. The tops of the muffins will feel firm to the touch.

11) Remove the muffins from the oven, and as soon as you're able to handle them, transfer them to a rack. If you serve the muffins warm, the filling will be molten. If you wait for them to cool, it'll firm up.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Its that time of year again...time for lots of zucchini in the farmshare. I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website, and I have to give it a big thumbs up! It is easy and tasty.

Preheat the oven to 400
Cut zucchini in half and scoop out the seeds
Season the cavity with salt and pepper
Dice 1 roma tomato per zucchini half
Toss with a tbsp balsamic vinegar
Chopped fresh oregano to taste
Chopped garlic clove (optional)
Fill the zucchini with tomato mixture
Bake for 20 min, until zucchini softens
Top with mozzerella and broil until cheese melts

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

I love summer cherries, and they are wicked cheap at Haymarket, so I've been doing all sorts of things with them. I thought cherry coffee cake would be particularly appropriate for Independence Day, so I made this (picture will post later)